Pages

Monday, 18 May 2015

boys with long hair

My boy, and his rather smashing hair. Out clothesshopping (btw - boys clothes are awfy dull)

While the boy was off school recovering from a minor op, he got a visit at 7.45am from a community nurse, to check on his wound.As you can imagine, at this time, I was busy getting everyone ready for the day, so the boy had been instructed to let the nurse in and give me a shout. He did, and was very polite to the nurse, and I left the girls to it and went downstairs to supervise.The nurse was friendly, she greeted me, confirmed why she was there and then turned to my boy:

"Are you the big sister then?"

He looked a little confused at this, and turned to me, quizzically, before explaining to the nurse that his sisters were upstairs, and he was the boy she'd come to see. She was obviously surprised, but rather than apologising for her honest and forgiveable mistake, she turned to me and asked:

"Does he choose to have his hair like that?"

I get asked this question on a regular basis, and there's always a part of me that's tempted to say "No, I hold him down and pull it until it grows like that." Of course he chooses to have long hair! It's not the most common of boy's hairstyles, but it's not weird either, I mean, hair does grow, and there are plenty of long haired men and boys out there. Why does he want it? Partly it's because he likes to be a bit different, but it's also partly about belonging with other long-haired boys, and indeed being a little bit rock. And who wouldn't want to be a little bit rock?His hair might surprise people at first, but his friends don't have a hangup about it, just like they're not bothered about the lad who likes pink. Also, he is fine with it, so why should it surprise anyone else?It always makes me wonder what people would say if one of my girls had really short hair. Would they assume she was a boy? Would they ask if she'd chosen to have it? Wouldn't they use other things, like her clothes as indicators of her gender? The boy is well practiced in correcting people about his gender, and he doesn't mind much, although it does confuse him. After all, he doesn't dress or act at all girly (and he's got two sisters so he knows what they're like). Mostly people just apologise. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes people won't believe him when he says he's a boy. They laugh and tell him about Bill, the tomboy in their family; and they assure me that he'll grow out of it.My boy is most definitely a boy. It's what he identifies as, whole-heartedly. He's a boy with long hair. There's nowt wrong with that. (and btw, if he'd been born with female gender, and then told me he was a boy, there'd be nowt wrong with that either).